Writing

You know when an old idea that was good is blended with something else, and it all turns out to be ill conceived? Ham-dogger? Diet Jolt Cola? Ohm Connect has done the opposite by turning your electricity bill into a gaming challenge.

Einstein used a total solar eclipse to prove one of his early hunches about gravity. On August 21st, another total solar eclipse was viewable only in the United States. This view of the Sun affords new opportunities for theories about that incandescent ball of hydrogen that our lives depend on.

Daniel H. Pink, the No. 1 bestselling author of Drive and To Sell Is Human, reports that education is one of the fastest growing job categories in the country. Guided by findings in educational research and neuroscience, the emphasis on cognitive skills like computation and memorization is evolving to include less tangible, non-cognitive skills.

Author Paul Tough makes the case that persistence and grit are the biggest indicators of student success. Being resilient against failure, he says, is the fundamental quality we should be teaching kids.

Dominic Randolph, headmaster at a school in the Bronx is steering students away from “gaming” the system. “We have got to change the educational system to think about different outcomes and different capacities,” he says.

2006From Noise to Signal A seismic humming and what it could mean for the Earth Sciences community [Berkeley Science Review]On the “Death of Environmentalism” [Berkeley Ecology Center’s Terrain Magazine]
The Last Refuge of Democracy The “State of the Cinema” address at the SF International Film FestivalAgent of Change [Terrain Magazine]
A Brain of Solid Popcorn: Women in the Motion Picture BusinessSeed Magazine The 50th Anniversary issue of DNA’s discovery
On Intelligence San Francisco Bay Guardian